Day 3 - Part 2 - Siena, Monteriggioni, San Gimignano

Part 2 of the little hilltop towns of Day 3 in Italy. After lunch, we headed towards Siena. 

Beautiful Tuscany!

Nice building in Siena

Bell tower at the piazza in Siena

This bell tower was open (yay!), and they allotted a 15 minute time at the top. The walk up was fun through a very narrow passage at times - 463 steps to get to the top! Thankfully, we only encountered a couple of people who were coming down. The weather was beautiful, and we enjoyed our time at the top. Once we returned to the check-in point, the attendant told us we had finished just in time. There was a large school group going up right after us and it would have been crowded! Crazy to think how we would have managed if we would have been coming down while they were going up.

I love the look of these bells.

View from the tower

Nice view x2!! 

Aren't they cute?!?

Parts of the stairs were very narrow.

Love the colors in this pretty courtyard 

Street lights.

Even the street lights are cute! It was probably about 4 pm, when we headed towards Monteriggioni. Since this is the "off-season", a lot of things close at 4:30-5:00, if they are open at all.

Moteriggioni wall and tower

There is a small walkway built along the inside of the wall for tourists to pay a couple of euros and be able to "walk on the wall". Unfortunately, it was closed, as Hadden really wanted to experience that.

Piazza in Monteriggioni

Monteriggioni is primarily a tourist town and was very quiet this time of year. It is fairly small, but I absolutely loved the quaintness, the colors, and the architecture. Some of my favorite pictures were taken here. We didn't spend a lot of time here, as everything was closed.

One of my favorite pictures from Italy.

My favorites!

Another favorite picture.

One of the gates into Monteriggioni

Standing on part of the wall outside the gate

We walked on the outside on the wall going back to the car.

Next, we headed to San Gimignano - the town of towers. I think there are 12 towers around the perimeter.

San Gimignano

We were very hungry at this point, so food was our top priority. We hit the first restaurant inside the gate. John and Hadden both decided on rabbit. Savannah and I were debating on a couple, so she ended up choosing gnocchi and I had pumpkin ravioli. Our waiter said I had made the best choice. The boys enjoyed their meal, however no one was a huge fan of gnocchi. Poor Savannah survived on the bread. My pumpkin ravioli was very tasty and I offered to share with her, but she isn't a fan of pumpkin, either.

Cute little restaurant

San Gimignano at night

We walked the streets of San Gimignano for a bit, but the temperature really dropped after the sun went down. This was one of our favorite days in Italy - medieval architecture, Tuscany countryside and quiet, old streets.